flying cuttlefish picayune

China’s Belt and Road initiative is ostensibly an infrastructure project. However, it’s actually a dependency project, if the countries are unable to pay back the loans. As Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, became head of the US Dept. of Transportation, her sister, Angela Chao, became a member of the Board of the Chinese government-owned Bank of China. The US is one of the only countries which hasn’t opted into either the Belt and Road initiative, or the related Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Joining the Belt and Road/AIIB seems to have been the plan of whoever proposed Elaine Chao to be head of the US Department of Transportation, however.

This map is from ca 2017. Canada, and other additional countries, have since joined.

“Over the past several years, President Xi has spoken of building a “community of common destiny,” first in the Asia-Pacific region and then throughout the globe.”…